


Send Us a Message from Somewhere Beyond

by glassessay



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Monsters, Halloween Terrorfest 2019, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassessay/pseuds/glassessay
Summary: Francis Crozier wakes up as one of the otherworldly beings he never though were real. Worse yet—he's givenresponsibility.orA series of loosely connected vignettes in a world where monsters are men. Also known as all of my prompt fills for Halloween Terrorfest 2019.





	1. It's alive

_ In which a beginning is an ending and a journey is coming home_

The thing is, Francis had drowned.

First in the ocean and then, for a brief flicker of memory that for lack of a better word _haunted_ him, on dry land.

Well. Damp land.

Francis had drowned in the ocean and died on a beach and then he had woken up to a bearded man peering down at him. Francis had stared at him, head swimming, then lurched onto his side and coughed too much water out of his lungs.

“I’m not usually the one who gets to say this,” the man starts up once Francis has slumped back down onto the sand, “but like hell if I won’t take the opportunity. It’s alive!”

“Wh—” Francis starts to say, but claps his hands over his ears at the unholy shriek that howls out at the same time.

“Ah,” the man says, shaking off his wince. “That’ll be the way of it, then. Not _alive_, exactly. Undead, you might say.”

Francis squints up at him and tries to speak again. This time he gets as far as “What—” before the wailing comes back.

“Might try clearing your throat first,” the man says, straightening up and taking a step back. “And watching your pitch.”

Francis eyes him warily, then makes a show of clearing his throat. To his surprise, his questions come out sounding almost normal. “Who are you? Where am I? What the _hell_ is going on?”

The man chuckles and offers Francis a hand. He takes it and hauls himself to his feet; it’s only once he’s standing that he notices the man’s fingers are sewn on.

So is his hand, for that matter. Francis lurches backward and stares at him. The same coarse black stitching circles his neck—and that, Francis assumes, is only what can be currently seen.

“Didn’t your ma teach you not to stare?”

Francis looks back up, feeling shamefaced. “Sorry,” he says, voice still echoing oddly.

“Ah, you’ve just had a bit of a shock. I’ll find it in me to forgive you.”

“I still want some answers,” he reiterates after a beat of silence.

“I _was_ getting there,” the man says, raising and eyebrow. “The name’s Thomas—Thomas Blanky if you like, though the man what made me certainly doesn’t. All the more reason to like it, I’d say—and this is—Sorry, have you got a name?”

“Francis,” he responds hoarsely. “Captain Francis Crozier.”

“Well Francis Captain Francis, _this_ is the Other Side.”

Francis blink. “The other side of what?”

“Of the world,” Thomas says, waving his arm out around them.

The land below him is a beach, no doubt can be had about that, just as the water next to him is an ocean and the sheer wall of stone nearby is a cliff. But the rocks beneath his feet aren’t quite the rocks he’s used to and neither is the sea the one he knows. It hurts to look at in the way that don’t hurt at all: he shouldn’t know this place, something about it is so indescribably _off_, and yet somehow it feels as if he belongs here. As he has never belonged anywhere but aboard a ship.

It is a deeply, profoundly eerie, and he doesn’t understand a bit of it.

“And as for what the hell is going on, well, there’s bad news and worse news.” Thomas claps a gentle hand on Francis’s back and jolts him back to looking at the other man. “The bad news is that you’re dead. The worse news is that someone must have done you in, because lad? You’ve woken up as a banshee.”

Francis can’t do anything but stare.

Here is how Francis Crozier died.

The uncomfortable truth of being a sailor is that you’re most likely to die at sea. By sheer proportion of time spent on a ship instead of on land, if nothing else, but the standard hazards of the job certainly increases your chances. In battle, on accident, by scurvy or consumption or the pox—there are any number of ways to go even if you’re careful. The higher your promotions the more likely you are to live to an older age, but Francis had never really expected that for himself. Maybe it was his inborn melancholy, but he’d always had a suspicion that he’d die unnaturally and alone.

He was right about the first part.

They had just set sail, perhaps a few miles out from their home port, and Francis had been trying to get a look at a rock formation he hadn’t been expecting. There was something about it that caught his attention quite thoroughly—maybe if it hadn’t, he would’ve noticed the man sneaking up behind him.

Instead, the only thing he noticed was a sudden force against his back and the shock of the water as he drowned.

“_Why_,” Francis asks, voice scratching up through his throat.

This new world spins at the edges of his vision. He has no room in his mind for plans or thoughts or reasons: it is too full of a growing panic, a sinking dread, and his constant melancholy rearing from within. He wants an answer or a sign or _something_ to explain away how this nonsense is starting to sound reasonable. He wants something to calm the uncomfortable beating of his heart and the horror in his voice.

“That’s not really a question I can answer for you,” Thomas says.

Francis looks back up at him and tries to breathe. “What do I do now?” he asks softly, at last sounding almost normal.

Thomas moves his hand to Francis’ shoulder and braces him. “Well,” he grins, “you can start by joining me for a pint.”


	2. Never sleep again

_In which a dog becomes itself again_

Barghest was Jacko with the great ghost man who was see-through and touch-through for a long time. He was small and quick and chattering and maybe the voice who called to him had no shoulder to climb on but the ghost man gave Jacko kindness in the ways that he could and had friends to give it in the ways that he couldn’t.

He came to the ghost man when he heard his voice calling—reaching far and ringing loud for Barghest to hear. He was a different shape then, a tall and loping thing with antlers like a sword and shield all at once, the perfect companion for the woman with the sharp teeth and the eyes turned toward the past. He was still the waiter and the warner he was meant to be—he is and will always be.

Then the woman fell upon the earth and left, and Barghest heard the ghost man’s voice and knew that it was calling him and that he had to follow—or the voice would keep on calling, long and loud and longing, and he would never sleep again.

So Barghest ran to the voice, all clattering hooves and heavy antlers until eventually his hooves were little paws and his tail was long and winding. His name was Jacko, then, and he was the shape that he would be for the time with the ghost man.

It was a good shape, made for scurrying and swinging and finding little bits of food and tiny places to curl up in. The ghost man was a good man, always with others nearby for Jacko to climb on and listen to and they were good too, if just as loud and chattering as Jacko.

But Jacko did not mind the noise and he always knew that this was the right place to be, for the ghost man’s voice still called to him whenever he was away. So Jacko stayed with the ghost man and his others and ate and slept and listened for what was to come.

“None of them can understand it, Jacko,” the ghost man says once, after the singing man and the sharp-toothed grey man have gone away. “They do not know what it is like to never rest.”

Jacko curls up in the space that would’ve been the ghost man’s lap and chitters quietly.

“God has blessed me with this second life but no ability to sleep,” the ghost man sighs, hand brushing through Jacko’s head like a dusty wind. “It is only a test,” the ghost man pronounces. “I am certain it is only a test.”

Jacko does not know of tests or gods but he knows of souls leaving and the call of certain voices; that must be close enough to understanding for him.

The voice that called to Jacko was the ghost man until a new voice called to _him_. Barghest heard her weeping in the wind and screeched as loudly as the warning he was made to be. Then the ghost man was gone and the singing man was wailing and Barghest heard a new voice calling from far away and knew he was not Jacko anymore.

The journey to the new voice that sang out to him across the hills and rocks and water was long and short and long again—but Barghest knew nothing but the voice and the shape it was changing him to be, and so the journey was only the same as every other run toward the future. His legs stretched longer as the ground passed faster and his fur grew thicker as the wind blew colder and his nose grew sharper as the air grew clearer.

He is always Barghest no matter the shape the voice makes him but this shape is so much like one he has known before. It is called Neptune: this he knows like he knows the voice is calling or a soul is dying or that someone is around who might offer him a pet.

And then Neptune finds the new voice that calls to him and the voice is the wailing man singing out to him in silence.


	3. They're here

_In which two monsters are invited in_

Barghest comes to Francis just before lunch time on a Friday which, really, is about the least folklorically relevant time for such a thing to happen. Such is the way of Francis’ un-life.

There is no great shaking of the hills nor rumbling of the earth, no howl slicing through the air. At 11:38 a.m.—or as near to it as this Side can manage—Francis simply looks away from the soul he’s following and finds a giant black dog waiting patiently by his side.

“We’re an ill omen for this poor bastard,” he says to the dog. It butts its head against his legs and the realization hits him. “Unless you’re here for me.”

The soul nearby winks out without a wail or a growl to warn them.

“I’m already dead, you know,” Francis tries half-heartedly. “You needn’t warn me.”

The dog steps heavily on Francis’ feet.

He sighs, resigned.

Francis goes to Thomas to wait for the monsters that are no doubt coming to haunt him.

When he knocks, Thomas answers. He opens the door and looks down at Francis’ new companion and says “Well, this’ll be entertaining.”

Francis scowls and pushes inside.

“Hello Barghest,” Thomas says. “Back to a dog, then?”

“He seems to want Neptune this time,” Francis calls back, throwing himself into an overstuffed armchair. Neptune follows and flops down innocently at his feet.

“Oh?” Thomas asks, brow raised. “That’s—”

“Don’t,” Francis snaps. “Don’t say it.”

“…more dignified than Jacko,” Thomas finishes instead. He sits down across from Francis and stretches his flesh and wooden legs out in front of him. Francis stews in silence for a few minutes. Neptune huffs in something that might be called his sleep.

“I don’t want this,” Francis say, breaking the silence and the flat line of his mouth.

Thomas nods. A bell chimes.

“They’re here,” Thomas says, and stands up to let in the harbingers of Francis’ doom. The door opens with a whispery creak and Francis takes the deepest breath he can.

“Hello Thomas,” he hears from the hall like a cello crooning lowly on the wind. “I’d like to speak with Francis, please.”

“He’s just in there,” Thomas responds. Francis braces himself for what’s coming for him. “Le Vesconte, consider yourself invited.”

“Hello Mr. Blanky. Having an eventful day?”

“Downright boring,” Francis just catches—and then he is staring down James in the middle of Thomas’ living room.

“Hello Francis,” the siren greets, looking the same as last Francis saw him—tall and shirtless and lightly feathered. Francis resolutely looks only at his face.

“James,” he grinds out, a little of his banshee wail winding through. To his credit, James doesn’t even flinch.

Neptune lifts his head and all two hundred pounds of himself to his feet, trotting happily over to James. The siren bends down to card a hand the dog’s fur; after the first touch he stills and raises his brows.

“Hello Barghest,” he says. Despite his surprised tone, Francis still thinks it sound annoyingly like a hum.

“Neptune.”

James looks up, brows impossibly higher. “Sorry?”

“His name’s Neptune this time,” Francis clarifies grudgingly. James nearly looks taken aback.

Francis’ gaze flickers back to where Thomas and Le Vesconte have made their way into the room, chatting quietly about something or another and acting friendly enough to bristle at Francis’ discomfort.

Thomas lowers himself back into his seat and looks up at the new arrivals. “We can try having this conversation sitting down, gents. Else you’ll put another crick in my neck,” he grins, tapping at the coarse black stitches ringed around his throat.

Le Vesconte returns the grin; he and James settle down next to each other on the little couch directly across from Francis. He turns his head away from their gazes.

After a minute of silence, Le Vesconte clears his throat. “I see Barghest’s a black dog again,” he observes, nodding at the mass of fur again at Francis’ feet. “That’s quite traditional of you, Francis.”

“It’s not as if I chose it,” Francis mutters. “Or any of this.”

“Someone has to take charge.” James braces his feathered elbows against his knees and leans forward in his seat.

Francis huffs. “Be my guest.”

“Barghest came to you,” James says. In his siren’s voice it doesn’t even sound bitter. “That means something.”

The building wind whistles outside of Thomas’ house. It rustles a tree’s leaves outside the window, sending faded shadows scattering across the room. Francis would rather be facing that wind in the dark than sitting here.

Neptune lifts his head and rests it, huge and heavy, on Francis’ lap. He scowls down at the dog.

“People need protecting, Francis.” Thomas is looking at him with the kind of face Francis associates with unwanted truths. “Them from us and us from them.”

Francis sucks in a breath.

James and Thomas are right, both of them, and there’s no real use in denying it. If there was, he’d be doing nothing else—but Francis is a banshee and he knows when an argument is dead.

“We’ll have the gathering same as normal,” he finally says, settling a hand on Neptune’s warm head. “And—And we’ll have a plan by then too.”

The small, relieved smile James sends him is mystifying and familiar: the brief and lifesaving flash of a lighthouse in a storm.


	4. What I used to dream, I now dread

_In which there's more to leading than trying not to die_

It takes a few days and an endless series of trips across the breadth of the Side, but they do eventually come up with a plan. It’s ultimately a straightforward one—it has to be, if they have a hope of pulling it off in the ten days they have left.

The main crux of the plan—the only crux of it, to be honest—is protecting the rifts that open up in the boundary between the two Sides. The largest, most vulnerable rift will be buffered by a major piece of spell work; the rest will be given Watches of an appropriate size to stop anyone from crossing over. In _either_ direction—it isn’t the end of the world if someone sees something unusual on All Hallows’ Eve, but Francis isn’t fond of the trouble caused when people end up stuck on a Side that isn’t theirs.

They’ll have time for a better, more complex plan next year—this one just has to hold up for one night. It’s simple but it should work, if only because Francis has a personal alarm system in the shape of a great black dog that can tell when souls are in the boundary. Or so he keeps trying to convince himself.

God above, he doesn’t want to do this.

“It’s a solid plan, Francis.” James rests a hand on his shoulder for the briefest flicker of a second. For the first time Francis can remember, the siren’s actually wearing something close to a shirt. “Simple but effective.”

Francis hums in lieu of an answer. His mind is whirling through all the ways that things could go wrong—he doesn’t really know how to respond to reassurance.

“You don’t even have to take my word for it. Blanky, Little, and Jopson all agreed.”

Francis only hums again. He can’t seem to shake the feeling that he’s missing something—though of course he can’t figure out _what_.

Their summons has brought most of the beings on this Side scurrying and sauntering and crawling in toward the one spot they’ve chosen. Not a particularly meaningful spot—just a field they know will be big enough for everyone with a little hill to the side.

Francis, Neptune, and James are all standing at the foot on the hill, waiting for the crowd to finish gathering. A few of the great beasts are here, though not, Francis notes with some relief, the Tuunbaq. The bear must be busy somewhere else—a boon to the atmosphere of their little meeting. Francis can see Edward and Thomas to the side, having a quiet conversation with night-pale Irving; Blanky is just beyond them, sitting on a tree stump and gesturing wildly at a skeletal Tom Hartnell.

There’s still an undercurrent of unrest despite the lack of unnerving bear spirits —no doubt no one can quite forget _why_ they’re all here—but, well… Maybe there’s something to be said for seeing his fellow monsters a little more often. The tolerable ones, at least.

“For what it’s worth,” James shifts beside him, “which is not a lot, I know—I _am_ sorry.”

Francis starts and finally turns to look at him. “What?”

James gives a twisted attempt at a smile. “I know you didn’t want this. Probably didn’t even half-heartedly day-dream about it like the rest of us.”

“Not—not in this exact situation,” Francis admits hesitantly, “but I’ve dreamt about—something like this. A better version of this. It’s all well and good to imagine things earned by merit or recognition, but once it’s only yours through tragedy?” He shakes his head.

“Once it’s a tragedy we—oh.” James swallows. “What we used to dream we now dread.”

“Yes,” Francis nods. That’s an eloquent way of putting it. When he gets no response, he looks back up at the other man. “James?”

“It’s nothing. Just—” James shakes his head and clears his throat and smiles a little falsely, nodding toward the crowd. “You should probably go call everyone to order.”

A weight settles in Francis’ stomach. He would rather do just about anything else. “Right,” he says, and turns away.

He makes his way up the side of the little hill, Neptune just ahead of him. When they’re near the top, he turns around and looks out over the crowd of people, all here for—for something from him. Be it guidance or failure or just a halfway decent plan.

He catches James looking up at him and clears his throat.

The assorted beings are all chattering amongst themselves; Francis _could_ yell loud enough to catch everyone’s attention, but it’s not exactly the note he wants to start this whole mess out on. Especially considering he wants everyone to retain enough hearing ability to actually listen.

Neptune looks up at him, head tilted. Francis nods.

Barghest may be a warning meant for the living but even the undead and otherworldly can hear the hallowing reverberation in his bark. The hair on the back of Francis’ neck stands up; impossibly, he can hear James’ sharp inhale.

This isn’t the shriek of a banshee’s wail or the crooning of a siren’s song—Barghest’s call is a command for respect, plain and simple. And right now, it’s sounding on Francis’ behalf.

A hundred pairs of eyes turn to look at him. Francis rests a hand on Neptune’s head and tries to keep his voice even.


	5. You found me beautiful, once

_ In which Parthenope was also a mother_

His mother was a siren the likes of which their family had known for generations. She could sing desire into the minds of men until their hearts couldn’t say no loud enough to wash it out. She could call a ship of seventy and bring them grasping toward her until one by one they perished and only the cabin boy was left to sail. They would choke on sea foam or lose the strength in their limbs or make it just close enough to break their bones upon her rocks and sink, red and briny, into the deep. This she had done as their family had always done, singing and whispering and tempting until her throat was sore.

Then one day a man finally climbed onto her little island with his hands only bleeding and a promise of the future gleaming in his eyes.

“I used to dream of someone like him coming to me,” his mother would say. “Now I dread that someone else will do the same.”

Thus went the story of how James came to be; thus was the story of how his father left.

“He thought I was beautiful, once,” is the only other thing his mother will say when James asks about this man he never knew. Then she pulls him close, strokes his hair and fixes his feathers and sings to him, low and rough and almost human.

James misses her more than some oaf who deserted the greatest woman in the world. Even if he never quite understood _why_ she let him live or leave or love her.

At least until the day he saves a man from drowning.

The most scintillating part of being a siren is not the dooming of the sailors that come his way, but the discovery of what they want enough that they forget to live.

James waits to see if they will wander out too far, patient and anxious, heart in his throat and purpose at hand. He never knows what will come out of his mouth until he opens it; then songs or whispers or promises pour out like saltwater onto a hurt that won’t go away.

Every temptation is a different mask: different Jameses sing of love and money and knowledge and power. It delights him, a little, to play these different parts, to mold himself into the greatest dream and worst nightmare for every human who pushes too close to their end. His purpose is something he can take pride in, like his mother before him and their ilk throughout the centuries.

And then one morning another ship sails just a little too close. James straightens up, blood pumping, and opens his mouth—but nothing comes out.

Someone from that Side is looking out at him, James can tell the way all sirens can—at a distance and in their very marrow—but no promises are coming to his lips and no mask is falling over him. It is a lack that fills him with hollow dread; for a moment he can swear he hears a howl on the wind.

He shuts his mouth with a click of his teeth and stares, wide-eyed, out to sea.

James’ heartbeat picks up, battering rapid and rabid inside his chest, jolting his bones and filling his veins with shuddering fire. His words have turn to dust inside his mouth—what kind of siren cannot think of something to say? What is he if he has lost his voice?

He opens his mouth, feeling choked and panicked, and tries again. This time—bless all the gods he has never truly known—he does manage something, though his voice is not the whispering melodic call it ought to be. Instead, he sounds almost human. Almost like his mother when she held him close and sang only to him.

“Hello,” he starts, though he is not certain why, “my name is James.”

“I saved a man’s life today,” James says, “or at least I tried to.”

Dundy looks up from his plate. “Dramatic start.” He swallows a bite of steak. “Did you change your mind?”

“_I_ didn’t kill him,” James replies, drumming his fingers on the table between them. “Well, I was trying to, you know, but one of his fellows pushed him over.”

“Rotten luck for him.”

James hums and nods slightly. In the corner of the little room, a fire burns away, drying the last of the seawater sticking to his skin.

“Did he make it out alive?”

James shakes his head. “No,” he says. He had dragged the man to shore but hadn’t known what to do about the saltwater he was already choking on. “But apparently all of it was enough to make him into a banshee.”

“Well,” Dundy starts, filching a chip from James’ untouched plate. “That’s not so bad then.”

James thinks of his mother and wonders if maybe it is.

It isn’t until James finally means Francis Crozier and has every subconscious hope shattered by the knock-down, drag-out argument that ensues that he finally understands what he mother meant so long ago. _He thought I was beautiful, once, _she said; it is only now that James can hear _but then I stopped singing._


	6. They're coming to get you

_In which the modern Prometheus was a terrible father_

The man who made Thomas doesn’t deserve any name other than madman, and even then only because Thomas knows it’ll annoy him past whatever sanity he has left.

See, the man who made Thomas—and whatever kind of man he is, that, at least, is something like an objective truth—thought he might play at being a god and create life from meat and lightning. And say what you will about the bastard, but the damn thing had worked, hadn’t it; but the uncanny isn’t awful until it’s almost what it should be, so the man who made him was unprepared for what he thought Thomas truly was.

He has only ever been a man, but in his maker’s eyes he was always a monster.

He was a son shamed and shunned, and the town around him followed in his maker’s footsteps. They ran him out with torches and pitchforks and close-mindedness, drove him into the wilderness where it was dark and desolate and full of dangers he couldn’t even imagine.

He spends weeks looking over his shoulder, hoping they aren’t still behind him, hoping they aren’t trying to burn him alive. It leaves him jumping at every shadow and twitching at every noise—but it’s not paranoia if they really are coming to get you.

It’s still a hell of an awful way to live.

He ran far from the town that hated him for being alive, through the woods and wilderness, living on what little he has learned. He comes across a blind man willing to teach him how to be a being living in the world and lives with him for months, just learning what it is to be alive and trying to puzzle out why he _is_ at all.

The blind man trades stories for handiwork. He fixes a table in exchange for the recounting of a childhood adventure, chops firewood for the history of the little village they’re just outside of, carves an oaken cane while listening to the legacies of the man’s people, the ways in which they were made and how they survived through it.

He understands the golem best, he thinks, though he doesn’t like the ending; his favorite tale is the storytelling queen.

“Today I will tell you of how my people survived yet another man who wanted them dead,” the man starts bluntly, though he does not know the word for that yet. “But first you must shake that—” the man taps a little wooden box of buttons that has been brought out for the mending “—and shake it whenever I say the name Haman.”

He dutifully shakes it. “Why?” he asks. It is something he does often.

“Because that man tried to kill us. We disrespect his name to show we disrespect his memory.”

He thinks. “I haven’t got a name,” he says. “Not a real one.”

The man leans back in his chair. “Would you like one?”

“Yes.”

“What would you like it to say?”

_A name_, he thinks, _a name for me and all of who I am._ What does he want, in the deepest part of him? Who does he want to be?

“That there’s someone out there like me. That I’m not alone.”

The man nods solemnly. “Ah—te’oma, then. How does Thomas sound?”

All stories have an ending, Thomas learns, even stories stretched out across many nights and people who offer you shelter and the tools to make yourself into something more. Even storytellers can run out of breath.

Life is losing, at least a little bit. Thomas hadn’t wanted to accept it then. He had sobbed and raged and howled like the child he truly was; it had felt good, for a while, but eventually he had run out of tears and sound and fury and he knew he must find something else to live for.

He goes back to the town that drove him out and pleads his case before his maker.

Thomas wants what any person, grown or constructed, wants—someone to talk to. Someone to hold. Someone who understands.

He tries to make a deal with the man who made him; Thomas will leave him alone, forever, if only he will make him someone else like him. A companion to spend his life with. Someone who tells stories about everything they can.

The man who made him says no. And Thomas, unable to convince him, swears he will have his revenge upon him; that the man will not only rue his trespass against nature, but that he did not do it twice.

But revenge is a hard and horrible thing to earn and Thomas has no real stomach for it. So he leaves the man who made him weeping in the snow and convinced that Thomas will always be coming for him, and he goes, once again, into the wilderness. Not to survive, this time, but to find a way to die.

Maybe he does die, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he falls through a hole in the world and comes out the Other Side—but that, as they say, is a story yet to be finished.


	7. A disquieting metamorphosis

_In which a man becomes himself again_

“Thomas,” greets Blanky once the cherrywood door swings open.

“Thomas,” Jopson smiles back.

“Jesus Christ,” mutters Francis.

“I don’t think he’s on this Side,” James quips under his breath, shooting Francis a smug little grin.

Francis stares back at him, incredulous and barely able to suppress a smile. “You shouldn’t even know what that _means_.”

James levels him with an unimpressed look. “I _was_ friends with John Franklin. And I’ve met John Irving, too.”

“Always the Johns,” Francis mutters in a concession of sorts. James’ mouth quirks up at the side.

“Edward should be back shortly,” Jopson says, ushering them all inside. “I’m surprised you didn’t run into him on your way here.”

“Nor him into us,” James says, smiling charmingly. Francis rolls his eyes and shuffles into the sitting room, easing himself down into a chair.

It’s a cozy little room, even without Neptune pressing in close to him; damn Francis if the furry traitor isn’t plying James for attention. There are plush cushions and warm blankets—all neatly arranged to please Jopson’s particular eye—and a suffusing sense of warmth that has less to do with the fire in the fireplace and more with the protective spells wrapped carefully around the entire house. It’s a room that belongs to two people who love it very much and have invested a lot of time and effort into making it a home.

It’s lovely, and Francis is utterly overwhelmed.

His heart is beating haphazardly in his ears and he can’t—he can’t _breathe_, not really, not without shuddering. The usually comforting chatter of the others around him has become an indecipherable noise that he can barely understand. He needs to get out of here, he needs—

“I’m going outside for a moment,” Francis announces in a mumble that must still set everyone’s hair on end, standing up and pushing his way out of the house before anyone can stop him.

He makes his way toward the back of the house, Neptune following loyally at his heels, until he comes to a little stretch of wall where he can stop and lean against something. He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Someone could easily find him, if they were inclined, but at least for now he can take a minute in the clear air.

The breeze across the hills clears a little of the cloying heat from his face, rustling the leaves of the trees on the edge of the forest just beyond. Neptune pads over to his side and noses against his hanging hand; Francis cracks an eye open and looks down at the furry lump of shadows in the darkness. He feels his shoulders drop a few miniscule inches down from his ears.

The problem isn’t that there’s a house full of comfort and love and people he mostly likes: the problem, the thing that has his blood rushing and his face flaming and his brain spiraling around in circles, is that now he has to _protect_ that house. It’s his responsibility. Because John Franklin managed to find peace or some nonsense and a mythical beast decided that meant Francis had to be in charge. The others will help him, of course, but there’s no avoiding the fact that if something happens to Thomas and Edward’s house—if something happens to some_one_—it will be his fault.

It’s a hell of a lot of pressure for someone who can’t even raise his voice without ruining the hearing of everyone nearby.

The cool air helps, a little, as does the comforting press of Neptune next to him. There’s no lifting the weight on him now; he knows that, and he’s coming to a kind of peace with it, but it still helps. To just breathe for a little while.

He’ll just need a moment every now and then, and bugger anyone who thinks less of him for it. Including himself.

Neptune’s head perks up just before Francis sees the dark shape slink out of the woods. It’s heading straight for them, running toward them with the gravity of a predator—then the wolf draws to a stop just ahead of them and starts to change back into a man.

It is, if Francis is to borrow James’ unnecessary loquaciousness, a _disquieting_ metamorphosis. Edward Little is a steady, quiet man, whether on two legs of four, and his transformations between the two states are no exception. It makes the matter slightly more disturbing, or at least Francis has thought so; it is one thing to hear a man howling in anguish, but another entirely for the man to be so used to that pain that he’s able to keep so quiet that one can hear his bones snapping.

They all have their agonies to bear, he supposes.

Francis rummages around behind him, pulling out a simple set of clothing from the little cubbyhole set into the house for just this purpose, secured from wandering hands by spell work courtesy of Jopson. He’s familiar enough with this particular need that it only takes him until Edward’s finished to be able to start handing pieces over. Neptune snags a handkerchief Francis had overlooked and hold it readily in Edward’s direction, tail wagging. No doubt the handkerchief would have come out of things drier when Barghest had opposable thumbs—not that Francis believes Franklin and Jacko were ever present for this occasion.

“Sir,” Edward greets once he’s clothed save for his bare feet. “Barghest.”

“Francis, Edward, or I’ll start to think you can’t be bothered to pay attention.” He grins lopsidedly at the little duck of Edward’s head. “How are the woods this evening?”

They both glance back at the shadowed cluster of trees. “Well enough, s—Francis. A little unsettled, perhaps, but that should change now that—well, now that the three of you are here.”

Francis raises a puzzled eyebrow. “Three?”

Edward coughs. “Not to discount Mr. Blanky, of course.”

Francis stares at him. “How in hell did you know that _James_ was here?”

“Er. I can—” Edward just clamps his mouth shut and awkwardly taps his nose.

“Ah. Right.” Werewolf senses. Francis usually remembers that. “Well I hope none of us smell to horrid.”

“No. It’s—I manage.”

“Hmm.” Francis stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “Blessing and a curse, is it?”

Edward nods. “Yes, sir. That’s exactly it.”

The wind blows a little stronger around them, ruffling Edward’s already messy hair and sending a few leaves scattering in their direction. The heat in Francis’ face is fully gone and he can feel the tip of his nose growing cold. It’s peaceful out here—but both of them have someone waiting inside.

“You’ve just done it again,” he says mildly, shaking his head in false disappointment. “Honestly Edward.”

The other man scratches the side of his head. “Sorry.”

“Come on then,” Francis says, taking pity on Edward and pushing away from the wall. “Let’s go meet our makers.”


	8. Call in the spirits

_In which there has to be one side for there to be an Other_

“It isn’t that I don’t believe you,” Harry signs as they walk down the sidewalk. “It’s just that there isn’t any evidence.”

Harry likes evidence—that’s no real surprise. He’s a naturalist, a scientist. Evidence based science is one of the great pillars of human understanding, and certainly an important part of Harry’s personal knowledge. As their little museum’s resident cultural anthropologist, Silna usually agrees. That’s why he’s so surprised when she explains to him that she does, actually, believe in ghosts.

Well, she uses the sign for _spirits_, but Harry thinks he gets the basic idea.

He’s trying to be delicate about his befuddlement—not just because he wants her to like him, but because he doesn’t want to discount her experiences—but he’s not sure how good of a job he’s doing. She’s still smiling patiently at him as they walk over to the train station, though, so at least there’s that.

“I will come over tonight and show you?” Silna signs. Harry isn’t dense enough to say no.

At half-past seven, while Harry is trying to neaten up his hair—whether or not he sees proof of otherworldly beings tonight he still wants to look nice—Silna knocks on his door.

He flings the comb away and hurries over to let her in.

“Welcome,” he greets, bending his fingers inward. “Come in, come in.” He shuffles back so she can come inside, then skirts the wall to shut the door behind her. Her hair is loose around her shoulders instead of tied back like it always is at work. It looks very soft.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks as she toes her boots off. “Or eat?”

Silna shakes her head so Harry shows her into the living room, their socked feet quiet on his old, uneven floor.

“What do we do now?” Harry asks, shifting awkwardly on his feet.

“Now,” Silna signs, “we call in the spirits.”

It’s not a phrase that Harry’s seen before. “We what?”

Silna sets the bag she’s holding on his couch, then holds her hands out to side the side and closes her eyes.

Recognition dawns. “A séance?” Harry says, forgetting himself. “We’re going to have a séance?”

Silna quirks an eyebrow at him. “Another way to talk to spirits?”

Harry opens his mouth with a click, then purses his lips. “No, alright,” he mutters, then lifts his hands up to sign, “Point made.”

Silna starts rifling through her bag.

“Do we—need anything?” Harry asks, hovering awkwardly.

She shakes her head. “Brought everything,” she signs. Then she reaches into her bag, turns around, and holds out a plastic Ouija board.

Harry nearly chokes. “O-oh,” he stutters. “That’s… Erm, that’s quite—”

Silna bursts into laughter.

Harry blinks dumbfoundedly a few times before catching on. “Oh, very funny,” he says, pulling off his glasses to polish them on his shirt. “You know you really had me going for a moment there.”

She grins broadly at him; he can’t help but smile back. He doesn’t really mind being the subject of a little joke if it means he gets to hear her laughing.

“Alright,” he signs as her enchanting laughter is dying down, “so what are we actually doing?”

Silna tosses the Ouija board onto the couch and reaches back into her bag. The next things she pulls out—a can of tuna and a half-empty jar of peanut butter—make even less sense. Especially when she opens them both and sets them on the floor.

“Er—” Harry blinks rapidly and twitches his hands. “Are we summoning a dog? A dog spirit?”

“Not a dog,” Silna signs, half smiling. “He likes the peanut butter.”

“He does?” Harry mutters, feeling lost.

Silna reaches out and takes his hands in hers. Harry’s palms suddenly feel uncomfortably clammy. She guides them down to sit cross-legged in the space where his mother keeps saying he should put a coffee table and shifts herself forward so their knees are touching.

The naturalist in him notes that the dark color of her eyes is not actually a true black, but simply a very dark brown caused by a saturation of melanin. The love-stuck fool in him just thinks that they’re beautiful.

Silna closes her eyes and starts chanting in that haunting, tuneless way of hers; Harry only sits there and listens to her voice. It’s better than thinking about what on earth he’s going to say after all this is over.

The air in his apartment shifts. Harry frowns—he’d though the landlord had fixed the heater last month. He doesn’t want to have to put in a request again. It always takes so long and he always feels so uncomfortable. It had taken the thought of trying to invite Silna over to an unheated house to finally bolster him to submit the last request, and yet here she was and there was still a chill breeze wafting through the house. That was Harry’s lot in life, it would seem. Always something going wrong—

There’s a bear in his living room.

Harry swears and topples over backward, banging an elbow on the floor. He scrambles back onto his knees—Silna is just sitting there, they have to get up and get out, they have to—

The bear’s muzzle is in the peanut butter jar.

Well, what passes for a muzzle. Upon a horrifying closer inspection, the bear’s face is unnervingly more human than animal and—and it’s also just a little bit see-through. Like the bear isn’t quite… all there.

Harry stares wide-eyed at Silna, looking back and forth between her and the _thing_ in his living room. She pulls him toward her and rests her hands on his shoulders until he falls back onto the floor.

“OK,” she signs. “He is a friend.”

Harry blinks at her, heart pounding. Maybe he’s losing his mind. Maybe they’ve both lost their minds. Maybe—

Silna keeps one hand on his shoulder and slowly reaches the other out toward the can of tuna. She picks it up and holds it out to the bear; it pauses its inspection of the peanut butter, then drops the jar on the floors and sniffs the can consideringly. It makes a low, yearning sort of noise that sets Harry’s hair on end, then eats the entire can in one mouthful.

Then it turns back to the peanut butter.

“Alright,” Harry says after a few long minutes of willing his heart to slow down. “I’ll consider this evidence.”

Silna beams at him.

He smiles breathlessly back at her, before turning to the bear. It has big, bright, human eyes. “He’s—wonderful,” he breathes, wetting his mouth and looking back at Silna. “You’re both—wonderful.”

Silna tilts his face toward hers and kisses his cheek.

The Ouija board clatters noisily to the floor.


	9. I never drink wine

_In which two monsters dine together_

Henry Dundas Le Vesconte was the latest in a long line of Le Vescontes, which was increasingly more interesting the closer one thought about it since, in the typical turn of events, vampires did not reproduce in the usual human manner.

Well, excepting that one particular case, but didn’t that just end horribly for everyone involved.

It would therefore be more specific—though not more accurate—to say that Henry was the latest in a long line of Le Vesconte vampires siring other vampires. The name came with the vampirism, or at least with the one that turned him. Lady Le Vesconte was a wonderful woman; Henry though the name added a delightfully weighty panache.

One morning just like every other morning he woke up as Henry Dundas, a charming man with a charming smile, and then—

Well, then a lot of things happened that Henry is still not entirely clear on—James might say worryingly so, but Henry was willing to live and let undead—and when he woke up again it was nighttime, the world around him seemed slightly off-kilter, and he was hideously, savagely hungry.

“Oh, hello there.”

Henry wrenched his head to the side and smelled more than saw a man; a man shaped being, at least, with the aura of the saltiest roast duck Henry had ever eaten.

“You must be the Lady’s new foundling, then. She sends her apologies but she’s terribly exhausted right now—I imagine I would be too if I had just made a new creature in the middle of protecting the entire Other Side—but she’s asked me to take care of the welcome wagon experience.”

Henry stared up at him and felt his stomach growl in want.

“Ah,” the man grimaced. “You must be terribly hungry. Let’s get you something to eat,” he said, and stuck out a hand toward Henry.

Henry stared at it and tried to think past the smell.

“Er—” the man pulled his hand back a little. “Not me, though. I’m afraid that wouldn’t go over well for either of us.” He crouched down and helped Henry into a sitting position. “Do you think you can manage to walk a slight way? There’s a wood not far off that should suit us quite nicely, but I’m not certain I’m up to carrying a hungry newborn.” He tapped his bare sternum. “Hollow boned,” he winked.

Henry liked the thought of food. He liked the thought of real food even more than the brine and wind smell of the man next to him. He didn’t quite like the thought of standing up, but he might as well do it before he got any hungrier. Especially while the man was offering to help.

He nodded.

Later on he would meet the Lady Le Vesconte and find her a quite remarkable woman, if a tad over-worked. He’d take her knowledge and her name and the legacy of her line; but for now he only takes the man’s hand, and lurches slowly toward a promising friendship.

It’s a friendship he doesn’t ever regret, even when it means he finds himself across a table from a raving James, trying to survive another ramble about Francis bloody Crozier. With a platter of biscuits between them, thankfully. That’s what’s stemming most of the regret.

Henry doesn’t suffer much for the sake of his friendship with James, but he does suffer this. Frequently.

“He certainly listens to what I’m saying, but then he manages to find the stupidest thing I’ve said and explain me exactly why he’s the one—why he already knows better. And the worst part of it, Dundy, is that he’s right! Every time! I can’t seem to manage a single intelligent thought around the man and I—oh, others be damned Dundy I swear I’m going to lose my mind.”

Henry refrains himself from the obvious quip.

“I wish he would just—_see_, for once, just _understand_—”

Oh for God’s sake. “May I ask you a question, James?”

James’ hands freeze and he blinks silently at him. Henry takes another biscuit.

James shakes his head slightly. “Of course, Dundy. What is it?”

Henry takes a bite of his biscuit and chews deliberately. Then he swallows and asks, “Why is it that you care so much for what he thinks of you?”

James looks as if Henry has just announced he’s going to take a turn for the vegetarian.

“I understand caring for the well-being of both Sides, of course,” Henry continues mildly. “And I won’t deny that Crozier is now quite key to that operation. But why the investment in his opinion?” He allows the question to hang for a few pointed seconds. “Why have you _always_ been so invested?”

There’s an obvious answer. Hopefully he won’t have to spell it out.

“I—I haven’t the foggiest clue what you mean,” James unconvincingly denies.

Henry raises a brow. They both know his friend is far too introspective to honestly claim that as truth.

James sighs and drops his head into his hands. “I just—I wish—but he never—”

Henry reaches across the table to pat James’ shoulder. “That’s alright. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

James groans into his hands. Henry nudges the platter closer to him. “Biscuit?”

“No,” comes the slightly muffled reply. “I’d rather drown myself in wine. Or sea water.”

Henry grins and straightens in his seat. “Why James, you know I never drink…”

James’ head shoots up. “No, Henry, don’t—”

“—_wine_, at least.” He wags his eyebrows at the reluctantly amused expression on James’ face.

“Bleh bleh bleh,” James jokes, unable to keep a smile from his face. “I vant to drink your chardonnay.”

“I _could_ go for a glass,” Henry muses. “Rather a red, though.”

“Rightfully so,” James replies, standing up to go fetch something suitable from the back.

“Get me another tart while you’re at it?”

“Dundy, you’re utterly insatiable.”

“It’s the terrible hunger that lives within me,” he states matter-of-factly.

He doesn’t need to see James to know the other man has rolled his eyes. “Would the terrible hunger like the apple or the cherry?”

“The apple, thank you.”


	10. Sometimes, dead is better

_In which there's more to being dead than wanting to be alive_

Crossing between Sides—without paying an ultimate price, at least—is only really possible on All Hallows’ Eve itself. Only then is the boundary thin enough for passable rifts to appear. For the days leading up to it there is no means of passage; but, if one knows just how to look, there’s a chance of looking over.

Francis knows how to look.

Enough time has passed since his death that the people he once knew are notably different from what he remembers. James Ross is an old man now, and Ann a charming grandmotherly figure by his side. Their children—the ones Francis never even got to meet—have their own children, have had adventures and trials and lives of their own. A dozen different lifetimes played out on the other side of the world.

A few of those grandchildren are clustered around James now, listening to stories of adventures that Francis had heard a dozen times over before he ever died. James makes the same faces, uses the same gestures, and mimics the same voices as he had the first time through: Francis’ view is muffled, foggy, but there’s no doubting the consistent dramatics of Ross’ story.

He’s surrounded by the attention of people who love him—just as he has always been. And Francis is off to the side, unable to move past his separation, just as he has always been.

This is how James finds him when he comes looking.

He stops just behind Francis and softly clears his throat. Francis fists a hand in Neptune’s fur and doesn’t look away from Ross’ waving hands and beaming face. He’s telling of an ill-advised stunt they had pulled as twenty somethings, when they were full of brashness and bravery and certainty in their own survival.

They had “borrowed” a little sailboat from James’ uncle with the intention of taking a little pleasure cruise up and down the Thames—then the weather had taken a typically English turn for the awful, and the two of them had only narrowly avoided capsizing in the thrashing waves. They had still ended the day as cold and wet and miserable as drowned cats, but at least they hadn’t actually drowned.

Ross tells it like much more of an adventure than it had felt at the time.

It isn’t until the story’s finished that James speaks. “What is it like?” he asks, voice quiet and unusually somber. “Being alive?”

Francis turns to look at him. “You _are_ alive, James.”

James dips his head. “To be human, then. To live on that Side.”

Francis swallows, his throat suddenly dry. “It’s just—_living_, James. It’s what you make of it.”

What would Francis have been with another few decades of life? What would he have made of it? Would he, like Ross, have made a family to keep him loved and warm into his old age—or would he have stayed the same man he always was, quiet and peripheral and unfailingly alone.

”I’ve never been, you know.” Francis pulls himself back from his wandering thoughts to listen to what James is saying. “Though not for lack of interest. It would seem I’m only capable of dragging people here, not walking over myself.”

“It’s not a journey to be undertaken lightly,” Francis says. “It—it takes a piece out of you, in a way. Either direction, I imagine.”

“Would you have rather lived your whole life not knowing?”

“I did,” Francis points out. “But you’re right. I can understand the desire.”

The siren song of the undiscovered had called to Francis his entire life. A little tug—soft but insistent—to learn just a bit more about how the world worked and the wonders that made it worth living in.

Right now, that song is pulling in the exact direction he ought to have expected.

“It was lonely,” Francis answers. “Good, often enough, but mostly lonely.”

James turns to look at him with deep brown eyes.

Francis, unthinking, lifts his hand from Neptune’s fur to grasp at James’ forearm. “Sometimes dead is better.”

James smiles at him, a slow and tender thing that grows across his face like a sunrise. “Neither of us is dead.”

“No,” Francis smiles back. “Not anymore.”

“There _are_ things I miss,” Francis finds himself saying after a few moments of grinning stupidly at each other. “Other than the people. Sailing, for one. And my ship, too.”

“It was a beautiful ship,” James says quietly. Then, before Francis can react, “We could probably manage something in the sailing department. I understand how… _lost_ one can feel, when not at sea.”

“Oh,” Francis gapes. “I—yes.”

James smiles softly at him and brushes their shoulders together. “After All Hallow’s Eve, perhaps. Then we’ll get you back on the water again.”

Francis swallows thickly. “I would like that very much,” he says, feeling raw and hopeful.

Neptune woofs happily between them.


	11. Corruptible mortal state

_In which a Watch watches a where_

Franklin sends them to watch over a tiny little rift in the far northern reaches of the Side, about as far away from himself and his devotees as is geographically and metaphysically possible. It’s the kindest thing the old ghost has done to Francis in a long time.

He voices that perspective to Thomas when they’ve lit up their pipes and settled down for their watch.

“If this is the sort of kindness being your friend gets me then maybe I ought to start sucking up to Franklin,” Thomas huffs with a grin. “I never see Jamie spending a night in the arse-end of nowhere.”

Francis scoffs. “As if you could ever stand acting like that bird-brained idiot for more than a joke.”

“He’s not as bad as all that, Francis.”

Francis raises an eyebrow and takes a drag on his pipe.

“Probably a pleasanter watch down south,” he offers to the wind.

“Aye,” Thomas says. “More of a risk of people crossing over, though.”

Francis nods in agreement, tapping his pipe lightly against his teeth. “Such a shame we won’t have the opportunity to—ah, what was it—_guide those lost souls away from their corruptible mortal state_ and all that drivel.”

“Mm, pity.” Thomas pulls one of his legs up across his knee. “And here I was, so looking forward to purifying.”

“I can’t stand his little speeches,” Francis blurts out, mouth twisting into a grimace. “I swear they get worse each year. Keeps going on and on about _corruptible souls_ and can’t even acknowledge his own inclusion.”

“A man’s allowed his regrets, Francis,” Thomas pronounces with only the hint of a smile.

“_Allowed_?” Francis asks, scoffing. “If bloody only.”

“Maybe he’s trying to stop what happened to him happening to someone else.”

Francis levels Thomas with a look. “Then he should warn people to make sure their wives, er, give up the ghost, rather than setting us up as little Hallows’ Eve missionaries.”

“It gets the others out on the job,” Thomas says mildly, before flashing a wicked grin. “And gives us something to complain about.”

Francis snorts. “To Franklin’s kindness,” he says, raising his pipe in a toast.

“Tom,” Francis asks a good twenty minutes later, “why are we here?”

“Because Franklin hates the sight of your grouchy face,” Thomas says, “and I made the mistake of picking you up off that beach.”

Francis scowls. “Bastard.”

“You know that’s not how I was made,” Thomas grins. Francis knocks their shoulders together in retaliation.

“On _this Side_, you nitwit.”

“Well,” Thomas starts, dragging out the sound of the vowel. “I’m on this Side on account of the how I’m an affront against the laws of God and men and my existence over there would’ve been a cursed one doomed to destruction.” He takes a long drag. “I reckon you’re just here because you caught the right albatross’ eye.”

Francis huffs and rolls his eyes. “I think your head might need tighter stitches.”

Thomas flicks his ear. “Watch yourself, bagpipes.”

Francis grins into his pipe and blows a little cloud into the air.

The rift is just a few yards ahead of them, a glimmering, shifting slash that bends the light around it like flames to a moth. Francis hadn’t initially remembered anything like it being around when he died; he used to think that maybe he made it through on accident.

“Sometimes I wonder if Franklin’s right,” Francis admits to the growing breeze that carries his breath and smoke away. “What if the whole point of us is as a warning?”

Thomas makes a noise that’s halfway between a scoff and a sigh. “Maybe,” he says slowly, “not as a cautionary tale, though. For my money, it’s more about fear.”

“You’re supposed to tell me I’m _wrong_, Thomas.”

“You are wrong,” Thomas says easily. “All the time.”

Francis rolls his eyes.

“We’re out here to scare them, Francis, but not out of becoming us.” Thomas knocks his pipe against his wooden leg. “Out of… losing themselves.”

“Doesn’t seem to be much difference.”

“We may be monsters but it isn’t a shame to be who we are,” Thomas says. He bumps his shoulder into Francis’. “When a soul comes to close to the boundary, why do you wail?”

“To try and stop them from dying.”

“Right,” Thomas says triumphantly, thumping his leg. “_Not_ to stop them from becoming a banshee or a miserable old sod without the ability to smile.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the cruel one,” Francis mutters wryly.

Thomas shoots him a look, then turns back to watch the otherworldly rift in front of them. “We’re not a bad thing to end up as,” he says, “not all of us, at least.”

(“I exist to scare people,” James will say a year later as Francis strokes the curve of his hip and the soft brown feathers that grow there. “To stop them from sailing to places they won’t survive. From going places they shouldn’t be.”

“You’re a warning of danger,” Francis agrees.

“Yes,” James nods, head shifting against the fabric of the pillow beneath him. “But in order to convince people of danger I have to _be_ dangerous.” He pauses, fingers fiddling with Francis’ other hand. “I’m not always proud of that.”

Francis spreads his hand across James’ chest and presses his forehead to his shoulder. “You exist for other reasons too.”)


	12. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

_In which a witch is watched by a were_

“Are you coming to bed?”

Thomas turns toward the quiet call. Edward is silhouetted in the workshop doorway, nightshirt loose around his neck, dark eyes warm and a glinting in the candlelight.

Thomas bites his lip and grimaces. “I haven’t quite finished yet.”

Edward shifts further into the room and clears off a stool to sit on. “Do you have an idea of how much longer you’ll be?”

“Er—” Thomas _does_ have an idea, and it isn’t a short amount of time. He sets the chalk that he’s holding down and walks over to cup Edward’s face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive without my Tom to keep me entertained.”

Thomas raises his brows and quirks his mouth. “I’m dreadfully sorry if I’m _boring_ you, Ned, your life must be so terribly dull.”

Edward shrugs, face appearing serious—but Thomas knows him well enough to see the twitching prelude to a smile. “Well, they do say all work and no play makes J—”

“Edward, I know you’re not a hypocrite,” Thomas interrupts, pulling back in faux exasperation. Edward follows after him, standing up and catching Thomas’ hands in his own, drawing him forward into an embrace. Thomas goes easily, wrapping his arms around Edward’s shoulders and not even protesting when Edward starts humming lowly and swaying them back and forth.

“Some of us do have to work for a living, you know, “Thomas says wryly after a minute or two of enjoying the feeling of Edward in his arms.

“I undergo a bone-snapping transformation nearly every night in order to patrol the forest and keep the peace.”

“And you look so terribly handsome while doing it.”

Edward blushes and bumps their noses together, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from catching sight of his grin. “It’s nearly the full moon, am I not allowed to enjoy my love’s company underneath it?”

“We’re indoors,” Thomas points out. “Under a roof.”

“I could leave, if you’d like.”

Thomas’ arms tighten reflexively. “Maybe not just yet.”

Edward smiles and they go back to swaying, each of them humming along to the same old, familiar tune. It’s comfortable and peaceful, and it reminds Thomas of something; when he realizes what, he can’t help but huff a laugh. “I think there’s something in my books about this.”

“Hmm?”

“Dancing with a werewolf under a full moon.”

Edward pauses for a moment before taking a breath Thomas can feel against his chest. “I’ve been told that we’re not under a full moon, we’re under a roof.”

Thomas smothers a grin in Edward’s shoulder. “And I’ve been told that you’re a somber stoic bastard without a sense of humor but apparently only part of that was right.”

“There’s no need to be rude, Tom.”

There’s mirth glittering in Edward’s eyes, for all the mournful downturn of his mouth. It’s a playful side of him that Thomas only gets to see infrequently—that, to put it plainly, only Thomas gets to see. It has him feeling giddy and glowing and grateful. He smiles warmly at Edward and tucks his face into his neck, cold nose to soft, warm skin.

“Nng. _Thomas_.”

“Yes?” he asks mildly, pressing his lips against the stretch of skin beneath them.

“Between this and your feet I’m starting to worry about your susceptibility to frostbite,” Edward muses, dragging a warm hand up and down Thomas’ spine.

“A good thing I fell in love with a walking radiator, then.”

He can hear the smile in Edward’s voice when he responds, low and warm like the hand pressed to the dip of his spine. “A very good thing indeed.”

They sway in each other’s embrace for a just a little bit longer, Thomas humming quietly under his breath, until a candle gutters and the pressing deadline of his work comes back to him.

Thomas draws his head back ruefully, lifting a hand up to Edward’s jaw and stroking across his cheek.

“Shall I wait up?” Edward asks, leaning into the touch.

Thomas sighs and shakes his head. “I’m going to be a bit longer, I’m afraid.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

There are many things Thomas wants Edward to do, all of which would be distinctly _un_helpful. He limits himself to asking for a simple favor. “I do need the agrimony from the cellar, if you don’t mind. And—” he smiles a little sheepishly “—put the kettle on?”

Edward presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and steps back; Thomas spares a mournful thought for the warmth of his hands on his back. “Cone of yellow flowers?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ll just be a moment,” Edward promises, then disappears around the corner.

Thomas makes to light a new candle, walking over to the cupboard when he keeps those supplies. It’s no wonder Edward was curious; the evening has grown late and will soon start growing early again, and Thomas had been working though all of it. And every night for the week before. But the work needs to be done and so Thomas is going to do it, even if he is so dreadfully tired.

He eyes the candle he’s just lit and pauses to think. He _is_ quite tired, and very much in need of reviving if he’s going to finish making this spell with any energy left to cast it. The candles will hold unattended—he’s enchanted them to do just that—and this really is the perfect stopping point. And Edward had sounded so inviting…

Thomas tucks the matches away and follows Edward’s path to the cellar door. He rounds the corner just as Edward is closing the door behind him.

Edward blinks at his presence and holds up a bushel of dried agrimony. “Is this good?”

“Perfect,” Thomas says, taking the agrimony and stowing it on a shelf without breaking eye contact. Edward raises an eyebrow.

“And the kettle?”

“Nix the kettle,” Thomas says, grabbing two careful handfuls of the front of Edward’s shirt and starting to walk them backwards. “I’ll put it on later. I’ve a better idea for a break.”

“Oh?” Edward asks mildly, reaching his hands up to bracket Thomas’ waist and steering him safely through a doorway. “Thomas Jopson, turning down an opportunity for tea?”

“Well,” Thomas grins as they slow to a halt inside their bedroom, “it _is_ a protective spell. Couldn’t hurt to be suffused with love while I craft it.”

“Oh, well, if it couldn’t hurt,” Edward murmurs against Thomas’ mouth—then he presses forward and they make a start on Thomas’ break.


	13. This is Halloween

_In which an ending is a beginning and coming home is a journey_

This is All Hallows’ Eve:

The spell work goes up and the Watches go out and everything at least appears as if it will work. The breath that Francis has been holding for the past thirteen days relaxes, just a little. He won’t let it go until the night is good and past—if even then—but there is some relief in having a plan even if it goes wrong.

“Le Vesconte and the last group have just set out,” James says, walking over from bidding them goodbye and drawing near enough that Francis could reach out and touch him.

“Good,” Francis nods. “That just leaves one rift left.”

James frowns, brow furrowing. Francis waits a moment for him to try and puzzle it out; when it becomes clear he hasn’t, as James closes his mouth after an aborted attempt at a question, Francis smiles.

“Come on then,” he says, grabbing Neptune’s fur with one hand and holding the other out to James. “We’ll show you the way.”

James only looks at him for a heartbeat before slotting his warm hand into Francis’ and twining their fingers together.

They come to a halt on a rocky beach, the spray of the ocean just beyond them.

There’s a rift between the two Sides of the world in any place where souls have crossed between. The rift on this beach is a small one, just a hand or two wide, because only one soul has changed Sides here. Only one person drowned on this beach and woke up a different creature entirely.

“Francis—” James starts.

Francis reaches over to take one of his hands and presses it. “I am a very stupid man,” he says, sounding fond even to his own ears.

“I…”

He smiles softly at James’ loss for words. “It took me forty years to realize that the closest living thing to where I was dragged to shore was you.”

James colors, a pinkish flush spreading across his face like the incoming tide.

Francis squeezes his hand again. “I never thanked you. For trying to save my life.”

James’ mouth falls flat and tight, though the blush does not recede. “There isn’t much to thank me for,” he says, probably the quietest that Francis has ever heard him. “You wouldn’t have been leaning over if I hadn’t been—” He cuts himself off, sounding choked.

“I was about to head off on a years-long journey with someone who apparently wanted me dead. There would have been plenty of other opportunities.” Francis raises his other hand to fully clasps James’ hand is his. He gets a shaky smile in response. “I appreciate the nobility of the sentiment even if I rather ruined the attempt.”

James shakes his head but doesn’t pull his hand back. “It wasn’t nobility at all, Francis. I just—” He bites his lip and furrows his brow. Francis wants to smooth away the lines and indentations. “You were different.”

“Different?”

James waves his free hand vaguely, taking a deep breath. “Most people, they want money or fame or power—that’s what calls to them so strongly they’re willing to risk their lives.” Francis nods. He’s a banshee—he knows why people get too close to death. “But you didn’t want anything but a—” James lets out a shaky sounding exhale. “A friend.”

“Oh, James,” Francis whispers. Something warm and glowing coils inside his chest.

James dips his head, dark lashes stark against his skin. “You are a terribly difficult man to ignore, Francis.”

The feeling in his chest unwinds and rushes to every inch of his body, from his warming face to the tips of his fingers running over the inside of James’ wrist.

James smiles wryly and half shrugs. “And then someone pushed you overboard and I, well. It just didn’t seem fair.”

“I was _miles_ away from shore.”

James coughs. “Yes, well. It wasn’t the easiest trip.”

“Why didn’t you wait for me to wake up?” Francis feels so breathless the question comes out in a mumble.

“I did, actually.” James gestures toward the cliff face behind him. “I didn’t think—well, I didn’t think you’d want to wake up to the thing that got you killed.”

For a moment, Francis can only look at him. History is slotting into place behind him as the future finally opens up. What a phenomenal, surprising, absolute mess of a man—whose fingers have twisted to hold carefully onto Francis’ own. What a blessing to finally realize is there.

“I lied before,” Francis blurts out. James blinks at the apparent non-sequitur. “Dead is actually worse than alive. Easily.” He tightens his hands around James’. “But undead might be even better.”

James looks at him for a second, then smiles: a real smile, bright and shining and spreading all across his face. It is beautiful, it is a revelation, it is surpassed in a but a moment by James bringing his other hand up to Francis’ jaw and tilting his face up to James’ own.

If James’ smile is a lighthouse in a thunderstorm then his embrace is a ship setting sail: the comfort of everything slotting into place where is was made to be and the exciting promise of adventure joined into one beautiful moment.

After a long while of that moment, James breaks into a grin against his mouth and huffs a tiny laugh. Francis pulls back and smiles questioningly.

“Oh, Francis, I’m sorry, I just—” If it weren’t for the joy radiating out of him, James would almost look sheepish. “I was only remembering something my mother used to sing to me.”

“How does it go?”

“Ah—it’s a just a little ditty, not really—”

“James,” Francis interrupts, “you don’t have to sing it if you don’t want to.”

James laughs a little wetly. “Thank you,” he says, then presses a short kiss to Francis’ mouth that he finds himself chasing after. “I would sing it _with_ you. If you wanted.”

Francis closes his eyes—just for a moment—and takes a deep breath. “It might not—sound very pleasant,” he cautions, uneasy.

“Francis,” James admonishes, sliding his hand around the curve of Francis’ jaw and threading his fingers in the short length of his hair. “If you don’t mind me _not_ singing then I certainly don’t mind you doing so.”

Francis swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. “Right. Well.” He coughs a little and blinks a bit too quickly. “Teach it to me?”

James starts humming, low and haunting. They sway in place for a few seconds before he opens his mouth and starts to sing. “My dearest friend, if you don’t mind, I’d like to join you by your side…”

And maybe they don’t sound quite human, and maybe they’re singing to a beat that don’t completely make sense, and maybe neither of them was really made for a duet. But that’s all alright, in the end.

It’s isn’t sounding good that’s important—it’s making music that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow along [here](https://glass-es-say.tumblr.com/tagged/halloweenterrorfest) on tumblr for the original posting, and to watch me not understand queuing technology in real time. Now that's what I call entertainment!


End file.
